The episode starts with the song "Wonderful World" (English Ver.) by Juice=Juice and Hibiki (Goriki Ayame) arrives at the Sun Plaza Asanuma guesthouse via her colleague's car. She looks on as the car drives away.
Inside, they show FSK of Juice=Juice members and a shot of Juice=Juice's 2nd album. Hibiki enters the room surprised that Misaki and Mariko are doing exercising in front of the stairs to her room. They sit down to chat and asked Hibiki spill the tea about her crush. She didn't feel comfortable talking about him, but they persuaded her anyway. She has a crush on a fellow teacher. Mariko and Misaki are pushy and want to see his picture and want to hear more from her about him. In English she says "His teacher name is Ben!" (Nakajima Ayumu).
There will be a lot of random English words said in this episode.
OCHA NORMA's Koi no Crouching Start opening theme
Hibiki is teaching English words to elementary school students. A kid starts crying all of a sudden over markers and then another kid starts crying too. She tries to calm them down. Suddenly her colleague Ben enters the room to calm the situation by randomly saying English words and it makes the kids laugh with two plastic toy eggs in his eyes. He lets Hibiki take over the class, gives her the toy eggs, and walks off. Hibiki is stunned about how he handled it.
Hibiki goes to the teacher's lounge lost in thought. Then two colleague teachers start throwing some English words at her. They show her a tinder "Matching app". Both of them talk about getting matches on app. Then one of the teachers finds "Ben-sensei" on the app and immediately Hibiki is curious. But it is the wrong "Ben". They reveal that "Ben" actually has a girlfriend, so he wouldn't be on the app.
Mariko says "Oh My God!" after Hibiki tells them that Ben has a girlfriend. Mariko and Misaki are disappointed about this love story ending. Hibiki tells them that she will not confess to him. She wants to try to move on and try her luck on the "Matching app". She shows them her profile that she already made. Mariko and Misaki read her profile out loud. Hibiki wants to try to put on a different personality and they are both scared.
In the next part : Hibiki narrates all her dates that she met on the "matching app" while using different personas.
Guy #1 : Hibiki dresses all rich and fancy with a turtleneck on her way to meet a person from the matching app. She walks into a cafe and the finds the guy. He is dressed nicely guy and his name is "You". She looks back at his profile pic though and his picture has filtered big eyes that makes him younger. He looks better in person than his profile. Hibiki smiles at him.
Guy #2 : Hibiki wears darker clothes while slowly sipping red wine (like she is in some kind of commercial). Her date returns from the bathroom. Hibiki asks her date some questions about him and isn't satisfied about his answer.
Guy #3 : She meets him a cafe. She asks him various questions about him. He likes to play golf and shop at Omotesando. She likes those answers. As leaves the cafe, she sees herself on the glass window reflection. She has doubts that she can't even explain to Mariko and Misaki. Mariko tells her that a door should open up for her. Mariko gets a CD to listen to. Hibiki tries to tell them what her feeling about love are. Mariko plays the song.
Hibiki is walking to her class, where she overhears two little kids say "I Love you" to each other in English. Hibiki is shocked to hear it. At the teacher's lounge, the teachers laugh about those kids confessing. Suddenly, Ben is walking to his desk, all spaced out and lost. The two teachers tell Hibiki that Ben might have broken up with his girlfriend. Then they tease Hibiki to take a chance to talk with Ben. After work, Hibiki walks with Ben and wants to talk. Hibiki is trying hard to speak. But it was only her imagination of him, and it was actually a another nice looking "matching app" guy. He notices that she isn't saying much to him. He says they should call off the date and go home. He walks away.
Hibiki is alone, looking at her matches on the app. She turns around and finds the "HELLO!" door. She walks towards it, opens it, and enters the bright light. She finds herself in another dressing room. Alternate reality Mariko tells Hibiki that she is in a dressing room without asking. Her is stage is ready.
Juice=Juice members Kudo Yume, Matsunaga Riai, Inoue Rei, Arisawa Ichika, Irie Risa, and Ebata Kisaki enter the room. All of them each say encouraging words to Hibiki. Arisawa grabs her arm and they yell "We are Juice=Juice" in the circle. They drag her to the stage door.
They bring Hibiki to a high school classroom. Juice=Juice members walk to the front of the class. With microphones, they perform their version of "Romance no Tochuu" in front of a "student version" of Hibiki in her school uniform. She is transformed into a younger student version of herself. She is writing a love letter to her crush. They push her to the shoe lockers, where she puts her love letter into Ben's locker. Juice=Juice continues singing. As she opens the locker, a bunch of love letters fall out of it. Hibiki throws out all the other letters and puts her in. She hesitates and changes her mind, but Kudo Yume comes up to her and yells "Have More Courage!" Scene changes outside, with Juice=Juice and Hibiki in a running montage at a baseball field, with the sunset. Scene changes again as the song reaches the instrumental break. Suddenly they are inside the gym. She sees Ben, wearing his school uniform. He smiles at her (Juice=Juice dances behind him). Hibiki is getting ready to give him the letter. But he just walks passed her, while Hibiki is frozen with her mouth open. She tells Juice=Juice that she can't go through with it. Inoue Rei and Matsunaga Riai tell her this is her only chance. The scene changes to a different rooftop, where they finish the song.
Mariko : "I Love HELLO! You love..?"
Hibiki says Hello and smiles beautifully at Juice=Juice.
Hibiki confesses and asks Ben to go out with her. He says sorry and rejects her. I WISH plays. Her colleagues watch on as it happen. They go to console her and tell that she did her best. She cries. She is then shown sitting back at her desk. Another guy walks in, it was the same guy that told her that they should go home from their date. Hibiki says "HELLO" to him English and he responds "HELLO" to her as well.
Cliffhanger : Scene shifts to Mariko returning to the guesthouse. She finds Misaki standing frozen in front of the H!P CD collection, listening to Juice=Juice's song "Dream Road ~Kokoro ga Odoridashiteru~" Mariko is so happy that she is listening. But Misaki is lost in thought. She asks her mother..."What is this door you speak of?"
Next week episode 9, is Misaki's (Ohara Yuno) turn and she is curious about "HELLO!" door herself.
Misaki (Oharu Yuno) asks Mariko (Kikuchi Momoko) about the "door" after reading reviews of Sun Plaza Asanuma, but is unconvinced. Also, from a conversation with her friend Nagi (Actress and Model Kurosaki Reina), she realizes that she and Mariko have been somewhat avoiding each other about important things...
Preview clip
episode 8 off-shot
Goriki Ayame was final guest actor of the drama. The final two episodes is all about Ohara and Kikuchi's characters, Misaki and Mariko, with supporting guest actors appearing only.